It is a real, traditional Chinese festival and one of the most important.

According to the lunar calender, tonight is the night  when the moon is the fullest of the year. In the Chinese tradition, it is time for a family reunion. Usually we have dinner, drink liquor and eat moon cakes (a special kind of round thick small cakes for this festival) under the moon. The autumn in China, at least the region I am from, is not so cold as in Sweden now. It’s such a pleasure to enjoy the cool autumn night.

In the Chinese mythology, there lives a beautiful woman named Chang’E in the moon (Chang Ö might be closer to the right way of saying it). They say that if you are drunk enough tonight, you might be able to see her dancing with long sleeves in the moon.

A painting showing Chang E’s flying to the moon.

Source of the picture: http://www.chinancient.com/change/change-02/

/Carmen

Last summer when I just came to Sweden, I saw a kind of yellow colored mushroom in MAXI and wondered if these little things poisonous. It was too late to buy it when my friend confirmed that these were actually super delicious. At that moment the price reached 200kr per kilo… All Swedes told me how tasty it was, how much endeavor people put into finding it and how they keep secret from others about the spots where the mushroom grew. Well, you can also get it in the supermarket with a price you need to pay.

This time, I grabbed the change when it was on discount in Hemköp — 99kr/kilo. I always love fungus. Of course I have to try this famous one in Sweden.

Kantarell is the name, in English is Chanterelle.

Chanterelle in Hemköp.

Chanterelle on my cutting board looks so juicy.

I don’t know what is the specially way to cook it. In fact I just fried it and added a little bit salt. Unlike the white mushrooms, Chanterelle is a little slimy. I can’t really describe the taste. It’s like a mixture of a lot of different kinds of mushrooms I tried before, quite rich.

Together with knäckebröd, sill, and meatballs, Chanterelle is something you must try in Sweden.

/Carmen

There was a football match, Halmstad versus Örebro, today at the Örjans vall, Halmstad’s biggest football court. I am not really a football fan. To go to watch a game is more like for a kid to go to the amusement park.

Carmen and my classmate Viktor with icecream.

The match ended with 1-1. One hour and a half was a bit too long the kids, also for me…

If you want to know more, please see the video: http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/sport/allsvenskan/article7813277.ab

Cold beer was not so bad:P

/Carmen

Photo/Patrik Lundmark

The days are getting gloomy, cold and rainy. So much school work… Reading, writing and having seminars all the time… My mood is like the flower.

On a raining Saturday, you really don’t have much fun to do, except laundry… Well, it’s not actually fun though.

Very often, there is a big laundry place equipped with wash machine, clothes dryer and a drying room in one resident building.  I usually use the drying room with the hot wind that generated by a machine instead of the dyer. People can book time by putting their name on a schedule board or book on an electrical device.

It was something new to me when I just came to Sweden. In China, almost every household have their own wash machine. The ones who don’t, have to wash clothes by hands. Then people hang their clothes under the sun to let them dry. It is not a popular concept to go to some laundry place, except those clothes that are not meant to wash at home.

The laundry place is usually free to use. I am thinking, maybe it is a good idea to import this concept to China.

Carmen hanging the clothes in the drying room

/Carmen

Photo/Patrik Lundmark

How to get health care is, I guess, a lot of international students’ concern. It is said to be expensive. And I want add, it is a lot more complicated than people may think.

Vårdcentral (health center)

In Sweden, there is a place called vårdcentral (Health care center) where people go to first when they don’t feel well. If the doctors in the vårdcentral can not solve the problem, they will write a referral to the hospital, which is called sjukhus in Swedish, and the hospital will send a letter in two weeks to the patient to arrange an appointment (This can come really slow, be patient).

For the students in Halmstad University, we should go to the vårdcentral in Nyhem first. It is quite close to the campus. The address is Långgatan 32.

The brown area in the map is the university. The red A is where the health center is. Recommend to call 1177 to book a time before you go. The fee for seeing a doctor is 130kr for people with a personnumber (the social security number); 900 kr for others. It includes all the normal medication or treatment within the hospital. But special treatment such as staying over in the hospital can be very very expensive if one does not have the personnumber or insurance. If the doctors think they can’t cure you, you will need to go to the länssjukhust (the hospital) with an appointment.

Sjukhuset (the hospital)

Halmstad is the capital city of Halland län, the biggest hospital is located in this city.

It take about 20 minutes to ride bicycle to the hospital from the center. It is also possible and convenient to go by bus.

Folktandvården city (the dentist)

Folktandvården city is where we should go when we have a teeth problem. It is located close to the city library, just opposite of the street.

Like the health center, the doctors will send you to the same big hospital if the disease is too severe to be dealt with in their place.

Insurance

All exchange students are covered by an insurance from the university. The procedure is to pay for your bills first, then fill in a application form in the school to declare for refund. The teacher who is in charge of this will send your application to the insurance company. It is very important to keep all the receipt.

Only the cost of emergency health care, emergency dental care and prescribed medicine will get reimbursed.

Note: The information of health care may change from time to time. What I have written is based on my own experience.

/Carmen

Now it is nearly the end of the summer though the grass is still green and flowers are pretty. It won’t be too long before the winter creeps on the land of Sweden. It is worthy going out now and capture some lovely moments of the soon-be-gone golden time.

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Close to the center, Norre Katts Park attract many wild ducks. These little creatures walk around fighting and quacking. They are not afraid of humans. Actually almost all kinds of birds are not aware of humans. The evil seagulls (no one likes them) even steal food from people when someone are having a Barbecue on the beach. The ducks are cuter. Once they see people walking on a bridge, they always swim towards you in case you feed them something.

They look so preoccupied in the picture, sorting out food. Hungry little things.

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A bridge on the Nissan river.

I like to walk along and explore the river bank. It is an abandon place where seems like a theme park in construction.

Everything looks so sweet in the summer. If I can have three wishes from a genie, I will wish to turn the other three seasons into summer, summer, summer!

/Carmen

Photo: Patrik Lundmark

It surprised me that Swedish who seem only eat FINE meat actually eat cray fish, and they love it as much as we Chinese do!

Around now is the cray fish feast season of a year.

I bought some in Hemköp. There were Swedish cray fish, and ones from other country. The one we had is the Chinese one.

Kinesiska mean Chinese; kräftor means crayfishes… jumbo crayfish… Haha, in Chinese, we actually called is small crayfish, comparing to the real giant ones in Australia.

It looked just like the one we had in China. Felt like home~

Just found out some pictures of the Swedish crayfish on one friend’s facebook.

/Carmen